


when will my life begin

by lilithqueen



Series: up the airy mountain [3]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: F/M, Here there be porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:03:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tuuri has been trapped in a tower for centuries. When a handsome young man comes along, she seizes her chance to escape. And, well. Since he's so cute and helpful, she seizes him, too. He doesn't mind at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when will my life begin

Tuuri had long since decided that the worst part about the tower was its monotony. Outside, the world changed; inside, it had been the same dreary scene for…

…For…

She actually wasn’t sure how long it had been. Years, certainly. Years since the curse had taken hold, banishing her to this stone tower surrounded by thorns with no doorway to the outside world. Food and drink appeared when she wanted it, clothes filled her wardrobe; she lacked for no physical comfort, but it had been ages since she’d had a chance to talk to anyone. Even the spirits that had sealed her up for her grandmother’s crimes had eventually stopped hovering around. She’d taken up embroidery just to have something to do. Immortalizing whatever passed by her window with needle and thread was just interesting enough that she didn’t spend all her time asleep, and time-consuming enough to fill her days.

The golden light streaming through the window was still bright enough for her to see by. She sat on the ledge, knowing she wouldn’t fall—she nearly had, once, and the wind had shoved her back inside—and picked up her latest project, a tiny sampler of a sparrow that had landed on the windowsill the day before.

Time faded away until, far below her, she heard the crack of someone stepping on dry branches. Slowly, she put her embroidery hoop aside and turned to look down.

Someone was making their way through the forest below her. She couldn’t see their face or their features, but their long red braid caught the light and almost glowed. Her heart seemed to lodge itself into her mouth. It had been so long since anyone had even approached her, but now…maybe, just maybe, she had a chance.

She didn’t scream out the window. She’d tried that in the beginning, and the spells on the tower had made it so that nobody had ever heard her. Sound didn’t seem to kick in until they were almost at the thorns, and then it was usually too late for them.

Instead, she waved.

The person down below drew closer before finally—finally!—looking up. His eyes widened with surprise as he broke out into a hesitant smile and waved back.

She leaned out a little further and decided to risk shouting. “Hello! What brings you here?”

For a moment, she was afraid he hadn’t heard her, but then he called back “I’m just going for a walk! Sorry if I bothered you.”

She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “Oh, no, not at all. I don’t get any visitors…um, ever. At least, not for the past couple of decades. So you’re great company!”

“Are you stuck here? Can I help?” Oh no, he looked worried. Worse, he was pressing closer to the tower, apparently heedless of the thorns that were shifting and uncoiling as he approached. She’d seen what happened to anything that got caught in them; it wasn’t pretty. And she’d be damned if she let it happen to him.

“Yes, to both, but—don’t come any closer! The thorns will kill you. Just—” As he froze, she paused, thinking hard. Yes, it could work, if she had someone else on the other end. “If I throw you something, can you catch it?”

She thought he looked nervous. “…Um. I can try?”

“ _Please_.”

She didn’t wait to hear what he said. Hopping down from the window ledge, she dashed around her tower room with a singular purpose. Whatever magic had stocked this place had entirely neglected the area of ropes and climbing equipment, but there was no shortage of tapestries. They’d probably been intended to keep the room warm in winter, a task which they’d never particularly excelled at; now, they would furnish her escape. Dagger in hand, she slashed them to ribbons and started braiding them together as quickly as she could, only remembering her visitor when she was up to her elbows in heavy wool.

She took a moment to poke her head out of the window—yes, the man was still there. “I’m making a rope!”

“Okay!” And then, “Wait, I know where I can get an axe, can I just chop my way through the thorns? There has to be a way through them.”

The young man _had_ to be some kind of prince; there was no other explanation. “Don’t bother, there’s no way in.”

“…Okay. Ack!”

She lifted her head from her work to see, with growing horror, that one of the thorny vines below her had almost snagged his clothes. “I told you to stay back!”

He was already scrambling backwards. “Sorry! I’m sorry, I was just trying to help.”

It was kind of cute, if it didn’t get him killed. Sighing, she braided the last few feet of her makeshift rope and climbed up onto a chair to knot it around one of the roof beams as tightly as she could. When a few practice jumps from the chair to the floor didn’t unravel it, she judged it ready. _Thank the gods there’s nothing I want to take with me; I don’t need the extra weight._

She thanked the gods that she’d always been strong, as well. As she heaved the other end of the rope out of the window with all her might, for a heart-stopping second she thought the man wasn’t going to catch it—and then he leapt, grabbing it out of the air, and called up to her, “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Tie it around a tree really tightly! I’m going to climb down!” Alright, so she’d never climbed down a rope in her life, but how hard could it be? All she had to do was wrap her arms and legs around it and crawl in the right direction.

Halfway over the thorn hedge, she started to regret her life choices. She also started to wish that the spirits had provided her with pants; even the strange ones she’d seen modern mortals wearing had to be easier than making the climb in a skirt. The young man could probably see right up it, too—but she didn’t have much mental space to worry about that because he’d tied the other end of the rope to a tree branch roughly six feet off the ground, and as she descended closer to the thorns they started to move. One of them nearly slashed her face, and she yelped and crawled faster—she was almost at the boundary, and in a few more feet she’d be free.

The thorns were dangerously close now. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on moving. _Just a little more, just a little more…_

Her leg slipped, dropping her to the ground unexpectedly. For a terrifying moment, she felt herself dangling, felt the thorns lashing up to curl around her arm.

And then strong, wiry arms were wrapping around her hips and yanking her away. “I’ve got you!”

They both fell backwards, her on top of him. She was breathless, heart pounding in her chest; as she slowly calmed, she realized that she was safe. She’d finally made it out of the tower. The faintly weightless feeling of time not quite moving the way it should was starting to fade; for the first time in years beyond measure, she was human again.

Slowly, she turned to look up into the face of her rescuer and felt a lurch in her chest that had nothing to do with leftover nerves.

He was _handsome_. Tall, definitely much taller than she was, and lean with muscle she could feel through the knitted sweater he wore. His long hair was an even brighter red up close, bits of it fluffing out from his braid to frame a freckled face and warm green eyes. As the embarrassed shock slowly left his face, he started to smile. “Hey. Are you alright?”

“…Yes.” She took a deep breath. It seemed to help. “You—you saved me. You don’t know—how long I was in there…”

He blinked down at her, arms sliding around her waist. “Well, what else could I have done? You needed help.”

Gods, this was too much. Dimly she thought that she should probably get off of him, but…well, he was warm, and the ground wasn’t uncomfortable. And he was so _sweet_. “I’m Tuuri, by the way. Might I know the name of my rescuer?”

“Uh—Reynir. I’m Reynir. And—really, it was nothing, I’m glad to help…”

 _He breaks a centuries-old curse and he says only that he’s happy to help. I thought I would never leave that tower again, and he says he’s happy to help._ Emotions flooded her, too strong for words.

So she kissed him instead.

He froze, and for a terrible second she thought she’d misjudged, but then he was kissing her back, sweet and tender; when he slid a hand up to caress her spine, she purred and arched into it, feeling him sigh in response. Her arms wound up around his neck, pressing them even more firmly together, and as he shifted under her she broke their kiss to murmur, “Thanks.”

He grinned at her, brief and bright, and pulled her back in for another kiss. This one was a little more heated, a little hungrier, and when he pressed a leg between her thighs she shuddered at the wave of arousal that pulsed through her. Experimentally, she rolled her hips, and he almost groaned; if her mouth hadn’t been deliciously occupied, she would have smirked. She clearly wasn’t the only one that hungered.

And then his mouth left hers to press a kiss to a spot just under her jaw, and she moaned. “Nnh, more…” She could actually feel him purr against her skin, leaving a trail of fire down her throat, gentle but with just enough pressure from his teeth to make her squirm—and then the world tilted a little, and she giggled as he rolled them both over.

Now he was on top of her, pressing her down into the soft grass under them, and her skirt had wound up somewhere around her thighs but that was more than alright because his free hand was sliding up her bare leg, hot on her skin, and his voice had gone rough with desire. “Oh, god, you feel good…” As his fingers crept over the soft skin of her inner thigh, he lifted his mouth from the mark he seemed determined to leave in her collarbone and asked, “Can I?”

She took a shuddering breath, letting her legs fall open. Words almost failed her, but he seemed to be waiting for a response—so she breathed out, “Gods—touch me, please.”

His hand slid between her legs, thumb moving in almost-too-careful circles over her clit until she bucked her hips and breathed “ _Faster_ ,” and he sped up his pace, sending electricity pulsing through her. And he was kissing her as he did it, mouth leaving shivery little points of pleasure all over her neck and shoulders.

 _Wait_ , she thought suddenly. _I want to touch you too._ So she did, working a hand between them until she could get his pants undone—and the pants were _weird_ now, buttons and little metal teeth instead of sensible laces, but that just made them easier to open. He was hot and hard in her grip, and as she wrapped her hand around him he made a startled noise and almost stopped what he was doing.

“Oh, sweet fuck—” It was more of a groan than anything else, and he shifted his weight to thrust hard and erratically into her hand. His breath came in hot pants against her breast, and she had a moment to be smug—yes, he did like this, it had been so long she’d almost worried she’d forgotten how.

And then his fingers slid into her, two at once leaving her full and almost aching, and she had absolutely no mental space to be smug at all. Or to do anything aside from gasp and arch, spare hand burying itself in the base of his heavy braid because she needed something to hold if he was going to curl his fingers like _that_ while she stroked him. It was all almost too much; he worked her steadily, hand moving at exactly the right pace, and she knew it was only a matter of time.

When he nipped sharply at the spot where her throat met her shoulder, she almost screamed, coming so hard she felt the aftershocks down in her toes. A few shuddering thrusts into her tight grip, and he followed her with a groan.

They curled together, exhausted. She was still twitching, little pulses tingling through her, and had just decided she never wanted to move again when he withdrew his hand; even the gradual movement was intense on her overstimulated flesh, and she shuddered when he pulled away and wiped his fingers on his pants. “ _Gods_.”

He lifted his head, eyes soft and worried. “Did I hurt you?”

She sucked in a breath, wriggling; now that some of her blood was returning to parts north of her belt, she was starting to realize that the grass under her was _cold_ , and her gown was probably a mess. “Did you—gods, no, that was incredible. We have _got_ to do that again.”

“Um.” He smiled shyly at her. “Alright. But, um—not _now_ , right?”

She couldn’t help but grin as she cleaned her hand with a previously-unmarked part of her skirt—it was doomed already, she might as well put it to good use. “You do need to recover.”

“Yeah.” As he sat up, shaking his head slightly, his smile faded. “So, um.” He looked flushed and awkward now, not quite meeting her eyes. “What do you want to do? Now that you’re free and everything.”

She reached up to run her fingers through the short fluffs of hair that had escaped from his braid. “I want you to show me where you live, and tell me everything about this world.”

The smile returned, quietly radiant. “Well, I don’t know _everything_ about this world, but I’ll do my best. Come on, I’ll take you home and you can meet my parents. They’ll love you.”

When she walked out of the forest for the first time in four centuries, she was holding Reynir’s hand.


End file.
